Moonlit Nights
by SOUND-Art
Summary: Set after New Moon. Edward is annoyed with Bella for spending time with Jacob. Bella is unsure as to whether she wants to become a vampire anymore, and Edward's relatives are making headlines in Forks, in a bad way. My First Twilight Fanfic!
1. Chapter 1

_Bella POV._

"Dad?" my voice echoed in the empty hallway, "I'm home." I dropped my bags at the bottom of the stairs and ventured into the kitchen, afraid of what I might find. Charlie had never been one to be a very social person; he was more quiet and sheltered. Some times, I wish he was more like my mother. Other times, I'm glad he's just the way he is.

"Bells? Is that you?"

I muffled my voice. "No. It's so random stranger who happened to get into your house. Seriously, Ch-Dad." It had still taken me a while to get used to calling him dad, compared to Charlie. Old habits die hard I suppose.

"Where've you been?"

"With Jacob."

Charlie turned around to look at me, and the saucepan he was cooking in was in sudden danger of being knocked off. I stepped forward to help him scrape the eggs off the bottom of the pan, and finished off the meal by buttering the toast. I sat down on the wonky chair, nearest the fridge.

"I'm glad to hear you're spending time with your other friends these days, Bells."

I shuffled uneasily in my seat. Sure, I was spending time with them, but I was spending triple that time with Edward.

"Yeah. Well, I figured I needed to keep _some _space between me and Edward."

Charlie looked like the sky had opened and the sun had beamed down into the cold kitchen. I was genuinely surprised by his reaction.

"Everything alright between you two?"

"Yes, well, I haven't seen him since Sunday. You know, with the Cullens going camping and all." I felt so bad about lying to Charlie, but then, some things are better left untold.

"How's Billy these days?" he interrupted my train of thought as he stood up to clear the sink.

"Good, good. Jake said that he's almost getting better - they can't believe it. Apparently Leah's taken a turn for the worst though."

"Poor girl. If I ever meet that street mob that hurt her, I'll...I'll," Charlie stammered, and I realized his fists were clenched in balls of anger. I stood up and rubbed him on the shoulder.

"We all know it wasn't her fault, Dad. Just bad timing." Leah had been in a street brawl, protecting an innocent teenager who happened to be the focus of an angry mob. Somehow, they go the better of her. Suddenly I felt dizzy.

"Bells? Everything okay?" Charlie looked concerned; I'd grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the table as I sat down. It couldn't be, could it? They couldn't be Edward's cousins. Never. But then they did fit the descriptions Emmett had told us. It would also explain the reason for Edward's sudden anger and the topic of Leah's incident.

"Sure, dad. Just feeling a bit sick. There's been flu going around." Charlie looked like a stunned fish and I half expected him to seal all the windows and doors shut. Typical Charlie reaction.

"I'm find dad, honestly. I've got to get homework done anyway." I stood up, gave him a reassuring hug and clattered up the stairs to my room.

Like usual, Edward was leaning against the window. Unlike usual, he was angry.

"Where've you been?" he growled, quietly. I glared at him before shutting my door with a silent click. He knew better than to push his luck by being discovered by Charlie. Charlie would have a fit if he knew Edward had been coming in through my window.

"I went to see Jacob. Then I came home," suddenly I felt like Edward was a father figure. Over-protective. "Why? What does it matter to you?" Wow. I really was grumpy tonight.

Edward flew to my side and grabbed my hand.

"What does it matter to me? Everything, Bella! Jacob's a good for nothing, lonely dog." Edward snarled, completely out of his normal character. I pulled my hand away in an instant.

"What? Edward, this isn't like you. You know I'm friends with Jacob. That's all it is, nothing else."

Edward glanced up to meet my eyes. "You smell like dog."

I was shocked. This wasn't the Edward I knew. He'd always been off to Jacob, that wasn't nothing unusual, but tonight he was being decidedly horrible.

"Edward. Stop it. I love you, and that's all it'll ever be. "

Edward growled, a rough sound that sounded like metal against metal.

"I told you not to spend time with him."

This was it. "I'll spend time with whoever I want!" I almost yelled, scared to raise my voice knowing Charlie was downstairs.

"It's dangerous, Bella! I'm worried about your safety."

"You shouldn't be," I snarled back, "Jacob can look after me just as well as you can." Edward was suddenly by the window again.

"Seems like you know him a bit better than I thought," he hissed, before leaping into the dark night. His presence lingered in the room, before disappearing into the night like a wisp of smoke.

**Hi all. This is my first Twilight fanfiction, so please be sure to review! =D Thanks for reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

_Bella POV. _

I arrived at school early the following day, having left early to avoid the treacherous snow that coated the roads. I knew my truck would survive any accidents that happened to befall it today, but I wasn't so sure I was so indestructible. I sat with the heater going, completely unaware of the curious glances I was getting as the car park filled up. Suddenly the engine gave one last great wheeze...and died.

"Great. Just, great." I grumbled as I slipped out the cab into the icy air. I slipped again when I saw Jacob standing right next to me. Curse those supernatural creatures and their amazing ways of moving.

"Hey Bella. Everything alright?" he asked as he grabbed my arm to stop me from sliding onto the ice. I regained my footing before answering.

"I think it died."

"You think?" he grinned.

"Alright, I know it died."

Jacob shook his head, "Bella, Bella, Bella. You really should have learnt by now that heaters aren't made for cold weather. Certainly not in old trucks."

I laughed, I couldn't help it. "You of all people should know I'm not a car person. Let alone an _old _car person." We both laughed at that, and then the mood became serious again.

"So, what are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming to school this week?" I asked him as I made my way to my first class. He tagged along in his great loping stride. I felt like a midget next to him, and apparently I wasn't the only one to think so - everyone was looking at us.

"Just came by to drop something by at the office. Thought I'd see whether the bloodsucker was up to anything interesting as well."

At the mention of Edward's nickname I felt sick. I'd almost forgotten the previous night's events in Jacob's presence. Jacob was just , so, _happy. _

"Uh, okay."

"Everything alright between you two?"

Was I really that easy to decipher?

"Sure, sure. I'm just tired." I gave a weak grin, and by the expression on his face I knew that he didn't believe me.

"Anyway, I should be going," he stopped and grinned. "I'll see you around."

"See you, Jake." I turned to wave as I headed off to my next class and clumsily stumbled into Angela.

"Hi Bella. How are you?" I turned to apologize and glanced at the Edward's normal table at the cafeteria. Completely empty. My heart sank, again.

"Oh, sorry Angela. I'm good, just tired. All this homework, you know?"

She nodded, "I agree. I was up until 2 this morning finishing off that Biology report."

I didn't know what to say in response, so I weakly nodded. We walked to English in silence, and the second I entered the room, I knew something was different. Edward wasn't there.

Making it through the day was absolute torture. I couldn't think straight, and my teachers all seemed to think that I'd lapsed back into my dreamless state that had tortured me at the beginning of the previous year. They'd call on me for questions and I didn't have a clue what the answer was. Jessica and Lauren responded with dark sniggers when I'm mumbled that I didn't know and I resisted the urge to throw something at them on my way out. As I made my way to my truck, I ran into Mike. Honestly, how worse could this day get?

"Hi Bella," he grinned cheerfully- or I should say, tried to - since anyone could see the discontent that was plastered across his face.

"Oh. Hi Mike." I replied, picking up my pace to get to my truck faster.

"No Cullen today?"

"Nope."

"What happened? Did he die or something?" he sniggered like it was some great joke. I had sudden envisions of myself whacking him over his useless head with my books, but decided against it. Edward wouldn't like it. Then I stopped myself. Did it really matter what Edward thought, anymore? Especially when he couldn't make an effort to be friends with me when I was friends with Jacob. I pursed my lips and kept walking, trying to lose myself in happier thoughts.

It didn't work.

"So, I was wondering, would you li-"

I cut him off before he could launch into one of his great year long suggestions that made me feel so bad to turn down.

"No Mike. Listen - I'm not interested. I'm sorry, this is going to sound incredibly rude, but..just leave me alone, alright?"

He looked at me like I was some loony, which I probably was, I just didn't know it yet. He glared at me before stomping off in the other direction and I heaved a great sigh of relief to be finally free of it all.

Charlie was in the kitchen, attempting to cook, when I arrived home.

"Hey Bells," he smiled, then kept on stirring the noodles. At least, they _looked _like noodles from where I was standing.

"Hi Dad. How was your day?" I dropped my bag at the stairs again before entering the kitchen completely.

"Good, good. Not much work going on though. How was yours?"

"Fine," I sighed, but I don't think it was convincing. At all.

"Really?" he murmured, probably afraid I was going into one of my phases again when I became unresponsive and shut myself away from the world.

"Sure, I mean it. Just had a tough day at school."

"Where's your friend?"

"Jacob?" I asked, a small feeling of happiness lighting my heart like fire. I was so glad we'd finally been able to get over that whole "issue" between the vampires and werewolves. At least with Jacob. None of the Cullens were happy about it. Especially not Edward. I felt a familiar pang of unease cross my chest and I slowly crossed my arms tightly across it, to not draw attention to it.

"No. Edward, that's his name? That lying, stupid, mean faced trashload of rubbish that practically tore you in part and then made you drop everything to go back to him a few weeks ago."

Whoops. Looked like Charlie still had a sore spot about that. It was so long ago that I'd almost put it behind me. Almost.

"He's going camping today," I paused, trying to reorganise my words so they didn't sound like gibberish, "with his family. You know how they're always going out on mountain expeditions."

He huffed before dishing up.

"I hate him. Always will. Carlisle the best thing that happened to this town in a long time, and Alice is delightful, but that ignorant son of his makes me so mad." I glanced up worriedly as his voice became rough and he clenched his hands into tight fists.

"Dad. It's alright - I told you before, it was a misunderstanding."

"Yeah, that's what he said, wasn't it?"

"No. He explained it all - actually, Alice did most the explaining." I yawned, hoping to sneak away to my room.

"I've got heaps of homework tonight Dad, and I've already eaten. He looked over in surprise at the change of topic. Normally I didn't let it go down without a fight.

"Alright Bells. Just, be careful around him. You know I love you."

"Night Dad," I smiled and gave him a quick hug before barrelling off upstairs to curl up in bed and deal with the unbearable pain that was ripping itself through my chest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi all, and thanks for reading my first ever Twilight Fanfiction. I'm having so minor issues with paragraph breaks (they're not showing up when I upload chapters, which is becoming increasingly annoying) so I'm trying to break them with a "===o.o====" Haha, it's reminding me of an emoticon! o.O Enjoy. =]**

Bella POV.

I sat up. The sound of water running was bugging me, although I really should have become used to it with all the rain we had in Forks - there was heaps of it. Literally. I could feel the cold draft seeping under my bedroom door as I got up to close the window, and shuddered when I saw Edward standing in the corner. In the dark, with only the moonlight reflected on his marble skin. I skittered over, with no control over my very own feet towards him.

"Hi," I tried to smile, but something didn't work right. It felt like the muscles in my face had frozen over. In this weather, I wouldn't be all that surprised if they had. Edward looked down at me, a curious gaze in his eyes. I couldn't read his expression and I was again thankful that he couldn't understand what I was thinking. If he knew the weird and wonderful thoughts that were running through my head right now...

"Hi," he murmured, looking away. He stared away from me and out the window overlooking the dark forest. I shuffled my feet, not really knowing what to say. Would he mind if I said something about Jacob? _Yes,_ my mind answered before I'd had a chance to think much more. Okay. So I definitely wouldn't say anything about Jacob. What about the weather? No. Too boring.

"How are things?" my mouth asked before my brain processed it.

"Slow," he murmured, softly, and for a second I thought he would relax. Instead he tensed up even more.

"Edward," I reached out to touch his hand, but he pulled away. I reached again, and he shrank against the wall.

"What's your problem?"

"My problem?" he turned to face me and I found his irresistible gaze hard to resist. I looked up to meet his eyes.

"Yeah. Your problem." I mumbled.

"I don't have a problem."

"You won't let me touch you."

He couldn't resist a small, sideways smile. "Do I normally?"

"Most of the time." I could feel him watching me when I looked away.

He sighed and I knew I was finally going to get an explanation for this impossible conversation. He relaxed slightly, before answering.

"You're spending time with Jacob again, aren't you?" he snarled. I stepped back, trying to stop the trembles that were shuddering across my body.

"I am," I sighed, wondering where my newfound confidence was coming from. Suddenly he was by the window, his face leaning out into the cold night air. I could see him shuddering, from anger.

I was scared.

====o.o.=====

"Hi Billy," I grinned as I greeted him, and he smiled back.

"Hey Bella," I was surprised by his welcoming reaction - it had been a while since he'd been so open and relaxed near me. Normally he shrugged and turned away because of the pain I had caused Jacob over the months.

"Is Jacob around?" I asked, letting myself into the house. The sun was baking down this afternoon, and I was glad for the welcome relief of the sun, for once. It meant the Cullens weren't able to leave the house; be in the sunshine. Although I wouldn't put it past them to have a series of tunnels across the underground of the town to travel through if someone needed rescuing. Someone like me.

"Not at the moment. He's at the Emergency Room," Billy leaned away from me.

I shook at the words. Immediately, hundreds of thoughts raced through my head at the thought of Jacob being sick ,being injured...maybe even not so alive.

"What's wrong?" I almost yelled at Billy.

"Nothing, nothing," Billy patted me gently on my shoulder, "Jacob's fine. Leah's come down with a serious case of flu."

I was tempted to ask if she was alright, because it was the most common question, but it was also stupid. Of course she wasn't alright.

"When will she be out?" I queried, not sure if I was going to like the answer.

Billy glanced at the floor and then towards the window. The birds outside were singing, their song to sweet for such an unhappy, unsettling mood. I didn't like it. It felt ominous.

"The doctor said she should be right in around a week or so," he nodded as though he was trying to convince himself that it was in fact, true.

"She'll be fine, Billy - you know how strong she is," I tried to smile, "well, she lives with werewolves for one."

Billy laughed at that, his old eyes crinkled up and he looked suddenly twice his age. Different.

"Do you want anything?" I asked him, pointing to the fridge.

"A soda would be great," he said, as I reached over to grab a can of lemonade for each of us. He led the way that I knew so well to the living room, where I sat perched on the edge of the couch while he sat opposite me.

"You've been coming here a lot lately," Billy remarked.

"I know."

"Everything alright at home? I haven't seen Charlie in a while."

I smiled, "Sure, everything's great with Charlie. He's more passionate about the sport on TV than ever. Apparently there's supposed to be some major league game coming up or something that he's even considering taking time off work to watch."

Billy grinned and gave a husky laugh, "I'm not surprised. It's a pretty big match, and both teams are equal top of the ladder. Not sure we'd agree on who was more likely to win out the two of them," Billy said and continued on about the game.

My mind drifted to two equal teams, both powerful, no one knowing who would win. My thoughts flittered from vampires to werewolves and what a horrible match it would be if they ever broke the treaty. I liked spending time with Jacob, I really did, but I didn't want him getting hurt because one of the Cullens - I thought especially about Edward - broke the treaty to "keep me safe". I shrugged with anger, completely forgetting the fact that Billy was sitting opposite me. I didn't want to be treated like a four year old, or worse, like a human. Someone who couldn't look after themselves. Someone who needed "protection" from another evil.

"Bella?" Billy was next to me, his warm hands holding my cold, pale ones. Suddenly I hated the look of my skin. It was so deathly pale, so _vampire _like.

"Mhm?" I mumbled, my thoughts scattering behind the conversation of Billy's game.

"Are you okay? You seemed to zone out a little there," he asked, a genuine look of concern crossing his face.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just a little tired," I yawned, surprised by really how tired I actually was.

"Do you know when Jake will be getting back?" I asked.

"No. I'll get him to call you when he gets home if you're leaving, though."

I didn't want to leave- the comfort of Billy's mismatched house was so welcoming, and the thought of having to face Edward and his sometimes almost uncontrollable anger was horrifying. I leant over to give Billy a quick hug, who looked surprised.

"Thanks Billy. You're a great person to know," I said, before standing up to go.

"Make sure Jacob calls me when he gets in?"

"Will do, Bella."

"Thanks," I said as I let myself out, the heavy wooden door shutting behind me. The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I made my way over to the great red truck that sat almost sparkling in the sunlight. My thoughts reared about again in anger, thinking about the vampires. The Cullens. My soon to be family.


End file.
